Yeah. That's the way I see it. Your analogy to being in the surf with a kayak is a good one. And the reason I think it's a good analogy is that the wave I saw was like a wave forming up as it approached the beach. Not your typical deep sea wave shape. In that situation, whatever would be best with your kayak would probably be best with your yacht too.

Yeah. That's the way I see it. Your analogy to being in the surf with a kayak is a good one. And the reason I think it's a good analogy is that the wave I saw was like a wave forming up as it approached the beach. Not your typical deep sea wave shape. In that situation, whatever would be best with your kayak would probably be best with your yacht too.

(Going backwards down the face of a big wave in your kayak). Ouch.

Regards,

Paul

I was relating this to my more crazed windsurfing period back in the early 80's. After growing up surfing and fighting through the shore break paddling out, sailing through the break was as much fun as riding in. However, it was all about timing. If you couldn't get over the crest before a big wave broke, you'd better be able to jibe and accelerate quickly or a lot of equipment was going to be turned into trash in a heartbeat.

Since it seems the likelihood of survival in the cockpit of a sailboat will be as much a matter of luck as making the "right" choice, one way to resolve this is to ask whether you prefer your last memory to be be sliding backwards down the face of the wave as the bow came over the top or looking at your speedo pegging 20 knots surfing in a displacementhull.

I guess one important consideration is at what point do you stop videoing it and upload it to utube? If you get it posted before it hits, at least you would still have your radio aerials to send the internet packet. When it hits you may be too busy holding on to more solid things than videocameras. After it hits you would probably have other things on your mind than being famous for a minute on utube and anyway, all the equipment would probably be bent or broken. But if you could do it, it would make a very scary clip.

Tanker heads to Bermuda after wave kills two crewA Greek-owned tanker is heading for Bermuda after its captain and chief mechanic were killed and another crew member injured when it was hit by a wave. The Aegean Angel was in mid-Atlantic sailing to the US Gulf with a cargo of fueloil when it was hit by the wave, killing the 47-year-old captain and 33-year-old chief mechanic and seriously injuring the 34-year-old deputy captain. A spokesman of Athens-based Arcadia Shipmanagement Co Ltd said: “The ship didn’t suffer any damage and is now sailing to the closest port which is in Bermuda to get treatment for the injured officer who is receiving medical attention on board while the company is in contact with the US Coast Guard.” The vessel, which was carrying ...

Wow, Hannah. I followed your link. The captain was inspecting a deck area after bad weather when a wave killed him/her and the chief engineer. Wonder how big that wave was given the height of the vessel. Sounds like it was very unexpected, coming out of nowhere.

You have to remember that when fully laden she is gonna have nowhere near the freeboard shown in the Library picture... also she's gonna be ploughing through other than up or over... a 10metre wave would sweep her decks easily...

If you go to this link and scroll down to near the bottom you will see a picture of a sloop (picture is mislabeled) that was beaten up in a storm off the east coast of SA. The blog details some of the damage. I don't know if it was a freak wave, but it was/is a strong boat and got badly beat up.

troppo's original question was "seen a freak wave lately?" I have never seen one, but I've sailed through one. (And, for the record, I've never been a lazy journalist.)

I was helping deliver a friend's Oyster 48.5, standing the dog watch on a moonless night in 3-meter seas when the boat suddenly stood up on its transom. We went up and up and at just the point I thought the boat would pitchpole backwards the stern finally kicked up and we began to descend.

I was in the cockpit the whole time, and we were motoring with the autopilot on. The wave hit us before we ever had a chance to adjust our course or the throttle. We doubled the watch and spent the next few hours looking for rogues, but there was never a repeat of the original event.

If you ever crew with me at night, you'll see that I'm always tethered when I'm in the cockpit on watch. Now you know why.